Welcome to Part 3 of our Website Traffic Blueprint article series, where we show you how to automate traffic to your website using WordPress.
In Part One of this article series, we described the process, and explained why using an expertly configured WordPress site is the key to automating traffic to your website …
(With an expertly configured WordPress web site, all you have to do is publish fresh content on a consistent basis to generate more traffic!)
In Part Two, we looked at the setup phase of this process. We helped you understand the best way to get started if you don’t have a web presence yet, how to set everything up if you already have a site, and what to do if your site was built with WordPress.
(In Part two we show you where to set up WordPress on your domain)
In this article, we discuss the configuration stage of the traffic blueprint. We explain how to configure a WordPress site to ensure that web traffic will automatically start flowing when you begin to post fresh content to your web site.
WordPress Web Traffic System – Configuration
Being able to drive more traffic to one’s website is often cited by most website owners as one of the greatest challenges they face online. With business getting so much more competitive on a global scale, it’s worth exploring any and every advantage available to get better results online.
The ability to generate traffic on demand can provide you with a tremendous advantage. With an expertly configured website, you have a flying start from the moment your website is launched.
The Difference Is In The Configuration
There is a difference between an expertly configured WordPress site and a site that has been professionally installed and set up by an expert website builder but not necessarily configured to its fullest advantage.
Here’s one way to understand the difference:
An expertly configured WordPress website gives you a professional web presence plus online business marketing automation!
(An expertly configured site gives you a professional web presence and a built-in automated online business marketing tool!)
Not only is additional work required to build and integrate an automated online business marketing process into your website, it also takes a special type of expertise.
Let’s illustrate this with a joke.
A Semi-True Story …
Everything was running smoothly in the gizmo assembly line when things came to a sudden stop.
No one could figure out what was wrong and so the plant manager decided to call in an expert.
Soon afterward, the expert arrived and, without uttering a word, went directly to the main control box. After staring silently at the board for 5 minutes or so, the expert then took out a teeny-weeny hammer from his tool belt and made a gentle tap near the right side of the box.
Immediately, everything began to work once again.
The manager was delighted as he thanked the expert, who left just as quickly as he had arrived.
A few days later, the factory manager received a request of payment for services for the sum of $5,000.
The manager picked up the phone and dialed the expert, demanding to know why they had been charged so much for less than five minutes work. He then requested an itemized invoice before hanging up.
The next day, an invoice arrived on the manager’s desk. Upon opening the envelope, this is what he saw:
The #1 challenge most businesses face online is being able to drive visitors to their sites.
In the story we’ve just described, how much money did the widget plant stand to lose when the machines stopped functioning and no one on the business had the expertise required to get things up and running again? Did the expert in our story not have the right to demand fair compensation for spending years building up the knowledge and expertise that allowed him to immediately avert a serious crisis?
Similarly, if you could have a site fully set up and configured so all you had to do is publish new content and search engines, social networking sites and dozens of other online properties would be instantly notified, how much time and money would this save you?
(How much time and money would you save if you could automate the process of attracting new visitors to your website?)
While experts often make complicated solutions look easy, it rarely is that simple or easy.
Knowing how to expertly configure a WordPress site involves more than adding some pages with content and configuring some basic settings. It also involves knowing where to tap! In other words, knowing things such as:
- Which programs need to be installed to add specific functionalities to your site.
- Which accounts need to be set up to achieve specific outcomes
- Which settings you need to configure in order to make sure things work as you have imagined, etc.
(Driving traffic automatically with WordPress is a process that requires knowledge and expertise)
Although this stage of the traffic automation system may not seem technically difficult, it can be quite involved and time-consuming. It’s not as simple as installing one or two plugins, clicking a button … it’s all this and so much more.
The configuration stage is a complex process that involves your web hosting server, your web site, and a number of third-party sites …
(Expertly configuring your website involves more than just configuring a few WordPress settings)
If we try to flowchart the configuration process, it would look something like this …
(A simplistic flowchart showing the configuration process)
Let’s examine what’s involved.
Web Hosting
We’re not talking here about the process of configuring your webhosting account for installation purposes (this should have been done during the Setup phase). We’re talking about configuring settings and options in your server that affect how you will handle all web traffic …
(In the configuration phase, your server settings need to be checked for handling both good and bad traffic)
Not all traffic is beneficial traffic. Some of the traffic your site can attract will be unwanted traffic like spam, security threats, bot-hacking attempts, etc.
This stage of the configuration process, therefore, is all about evaluating your needs, planning for both good and unwelcome traffic and then adjusting settings in your server accordingly. This can include looking at things like implementing spam protection and preventing security threats, to configuring domain and email redirections, setting up error page redirections, etc …
(Have you configured your webhosting settings for handling things like email forwarding, page errors, etc?)
After fine-tuning your web server settings and configuring these, the next step of the configuration phase is to set up a number of third-party sites and services.
3rd-Party Sites Configuration
The idea behind setting up external sites is that all content should be published to a central location (your site) and from there, be distributed automatically to other components of your traffic system, or notify traffic-related web properties and services.
Once you add these external platforms to your system, content pointing back to your website will be automatically added to search, social and aggregator sites. Your business will be exposed to new sources of traffic and new audiences.
Some sites will need to have accounts set up before configuring your WordPress site to save time and some will need to be done later, during the automation phase.
For example, here are just some of the accounts you will need to have set up:
Google Webmasters
(Google Webmaster Tools)
Google Webmaster Tools lets you notify Google about your site’s pages, submit XML sitemaps for faster page indexing, and provides site owners with essential data, tools, and diagnostic reports about their website.
After setting up your account and entering site details with Google, you can use this information to automate web traffic-related settings and notifications in WordPress using plugins like Yoast SEO (see further below) and other applications.
Google Analytics
(Google Analytics)
Google Analytics lets you improve your website’s results, SEO, marketing campaigns, and more, by tracking all user behaviour, pages visited, keywords searched for, organic referrals, etc.
After setting up your account, tracking information can be added to WordPress using a plugin and and sent to other useful applications.
Bing Data And Tools
(Drive more traffic with Bing Data And Tools)
Bing Webmaster Tools is similar to Google Webmasters. After setting up your account with Bing Webmaster Tools, use your information to automate traffic settings and notifications in WordPress and other applications.
WordPress.com
(WordPress.com)
As explained in Part 2, WordPress offers users a hosted (WordPress.com) and a self-hosted (WordPress.org) option. We recommended choosing the self-hosted WordPress version if you plan to build a professional online presence for your business.
WordPress.com (the hosted option), however, provides a number of useful features, which various WordPress plugins can access. We recommend setting up an account with WordPress.com, therefore, and we’ll show you how to integrate this into your automated web traffic system in the next installment of this series.
Social Media And Social Bookmarking Accounts
(Syndicate your content automatically to your social media and social bookmarking accounts and bring new traffic to your site)
You will need to have already set up your various social accounts in order to integrate these with your traffic generation system.
Once you have set up and configured everything, you will be able to syndicate your content automatically to your social media accounts and get new visitors to your site.
Make sure you have profiles set up with all the well-known social networks – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Pinterest, etc.
There are loads of social bookmarking sites you can set up. You don’t need to go crazy, just select those that will work well with your system and/or content syndication tools.
(You can syndicate your content to lots of social sites. Image source ShareThis.com)
Additional Sites, Content Aggregators, Etc.
There are a number of new online web platforms and RSS aggregators that can serve as secondary traffic generation sources. Some are free or provide free accounts, and some offer a range of pricing plans to suit different users.
For example, here is a content aggregator that lets you add your WordPress blog feed …
RebelMouse
(RebelMouse – Publishing platform for distributed content)
RebelMouse is an aggregator for your RSS feeds and social profiles. Your content is displayed in a Pinterest-like format and users can follow your website.
There are many different platforms you can add to your traffic system. Please feel free to contact us if you would like to explore this area further and discuss a configuration plan to suit your needs.
Once you have configured your server settings and set up external service accounts, it’s time to configure your site.
Configuring WordPress For Traffic
The first step in configuring your WordPress site for traffic is to make sure that your global settings have been set up correctly.
Let’s go over some key areas.
Global Settings
Your WordPress administration area contains a Settings menu that allows you to modify your site’s main settings …
(WordPress settings menu)
General Settings
Content entered into fields like Site Title and Tagline affect traffic by influencing your site’s SEO, search listings, etc …
(Settings Menu – General Settings Screen)
Writing Settings
The Writing Settings section contains a powerful and frequently overlooked built-in traffic notification system …
(WordPress Settings – Writing Settings Screen)
As described in the Update Services section,
When you publish a new post, WordPress automatically notifies the following site update services …
Unless you or your webmaster have purposely chosen to discourage search engines from indexing your site – see next section, then your site will automatically ping the list of services entered into the Update Services box
By default, this section includes only one entry …
(WordPress Update Services)
WordPress lets you notify dozens of update services automatically – just add a list of all the update services you want to notify as soon as you publish a new post to this section and WordPress will do the rest …
(You can notify dozens of update services automatically with WordPress!)
Download A Comprehensive List Of Ping Services For Your WordPress Site!
Click the link below to download a comprehensive list of reliable and authoritative ping services for your WordPress site or blog:
Download A List Of Ping Services For Your WordPress Site
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Note: If you need help setting up the list of ping services on your site, we recommend using a professional web services provider. You can find professional WordPress service providers in our WordPress Services Directory.
Reading Settings
This section affects how visitors will see your content when they visit your home page and blog pages.
The syndication settings on this page can influence traffic. For example, your choice to display the full content vs a summary of your post, affects how your content shows up in RSS feeds and RSS email campaigns, and could impact someone’s decision to explore your content further, and whether or not they will visit your site to get the rest of the content from a partial feed, or read the content in full without the need to click through to your site.
As far as traffic is concerned, however, the main setting in this section is whether the Search Engine Visibility feature is ticked or not.
Normally, you want to encourage search engines to visit your site. Leaving this box unchecked allows your site to ping various update services whenever new posts are published (see Writing Settings above). Unless you have a specific reason to discourage search indexing spiders from visiting your site, make sure this box is left unticked …
(Global Settings – Reading Settings)
Discussion Settings
Although the settings in this section are mostly concerned with how users engage with content on your site, you have the option to allow notifications to sites linked to from your posts, and to allow link notifications from other blogs (pingbacks and trackbacks). This can work for you, but it can also drive bad traffic in the form of SPAM comments …
(Settings Menu – Discussion Settings Screen)
Permalinks
Your Permalink settings allow your site to display posts with search engine-friendly URLs …
(WordPress Settings – Permalink Settings)
The examples below show some of the ways your post permalinks can be configured …
(Configuring post permalinks)
We have created a detailed tutorial on using permalinks here: Improve Your WordPress SEO With SEO-Friendly URLs
Configuring WordPress Plugin Settings For Traffic Generation
WordPress provides users with plugins that can add almost every type of functionality imaginable to your site, including traffic generation.
Let’s look at some types of plugin categories that affect traffic and plugin examples
WordPress Security Plugins – Blog Defender
Once again, it’s important to configure your website for handling both good traffic and bad traffic. No blog is safe from a cyber-attack.
(WordPress Security Plugins stop bad traffic from causing your website harm)
Security plugins like Blog Defender help to make your WordPress site invisible to bots and hackers.
Go here to learn more:
SEO Plugins – Yoast SEO
SEO plugins help drive traffic by making your web pages more search engine friendly …
(Yoast SEO – WordPress Plugins For SEO)
A plugin like Yoast SEO can significantly improve your site’s search engine optimization. When properly configured, the Yoast SEO plugin not only makes your web pages easier for search engines to find and index, it also lets you specify how to display your content to Google’s search results and social media pages, e.g. Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.
WordPress Social Plugins
Allowing visitors to easily share your content with their own friends and networks can help to increase traffic to your site, especially if you publish great content that adds real value to readers.
(You can easily add social features to your site using WordPress plugins)
WordPress users can easily add social sharing buttons to their website with WordPress plugins.
Many social plugins let you select which sites your content can be shared to, embed social buttons into your content, set up default post messages, display/hide share counters (e.g. number of likes), etc. Some social plugins even allow you to set up protected content areas on your site which visitors can unlock by sharing your page.
WordPress Traffic Generation Theme Settings – Configuration
As well as configuring various plugins, many WordPress themes also include features that help grow your traffic.
For example, as well as options and settings for configuring layout and design elements of your website, some themes also give you built-in features that let you improve search optimization and site linking structure for better indexing, add tracking code, social sharing buttons, etc …
(Many themes come with built-in traffic optimization features)
With a number of quality themes, adding social sharing buttons and features to your pages is as easy as clicking a few buttons and enabling the function …
(Many WordPress themes come with built-in social sharing features that can be easily enabled on with the click of a button)
WordPress Traffic – Additional Configuration Areas
Last (but by no means least) in the web traffic system configuration process, are the areas that need to be configured outside of the global settings.
These include the following:
Website Compliance Pages
Once again, when preparing your website for an increase in visitor numbers, it’s important to plan not only for how to deal with bad and good traffic but also for all the things that can go wrong as more and more people begin to visit your website.
If you engage in any form of commercial activity online (or are planning to), you need to ensure that your site is found to comply with regulatory agencies.
(Does Your Website Or Blog Comply With The Law?)
We have written a detailed article on why it’s important to have a compliant website here:
Post Categories And Tags
WordPress categories & tags help to improve your site’s search engine optimization, which improves traffic.
(WordPress categories help improve traffic by allowing search engines to better classify and index your pages.)
As we recommend in this article, your site’s post categories and tags should be reviewed and set up earlier on, during the Website Planning Stages.
When configuring your site to automate and improve web traffic, you will want to review and make sure that the categories and tags you have set up.
Add A WordPress Site Map
A site map that displays all of your posts and pages is not only a useful navigation tool for users, it can also help external applications find more of your website content …
(Site Map – great for visitors and beneficial for web traffic too!)
It’s important to note that an HTML site map and an XML sitemap are not the same things. Although search engines like Google can index your pages just from an XML sitemap (which plugins like Yoast SEO can provide – see earlier section), allowing visitors to find more pages on your site can result in increased traffic.
404 Page – Don’t Lose Traffic!
When online users enter the wrong web address or click on a link pointing to a page on your site that no longer exists, they will normally be greeted with an error page …
(A 404 Error Page)
Configuring your 404 Error Page allows you to recover traffic that may otherwise be lost. …
(Configuring your 404 page allows you to recover traffic that may otherwise be lost.)
Although a 404 Not Found error page can be set up on your web server, there are several WordPress plugins that let you easily configure your 404 page inside your WordPress admin.
WordPress Traffic Blueprint: Configuration Stage – Summary
Once your site has been expertly configured and fully set up, all you need to do is post new content on a regular basis to drive traffic.
The process of expertly configuring your WordPress site, however, is quite involved and requires the configuration and integration of a number of different elements and external web properties …
(Traffic Blueprint – Configuration Checklist)
The skills and expertise required to perform this phase of the traffic automation process can take some website professionals months to learn.
Once you have expertly configured your WordPress site, the next step is to automate the aspects of the process that can be automated. This step is explained in the next section of the series.
This is the end of Part Three
To read more, click on the link below:
This article is part of a comprehensive series of articles aimed at helping site owners learn how to grow their business online and drive traffic sustainably using a WordPress-powered website and proven web marketing strategies.
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